Level 1 Seminar Staff

About four years ago, Denise Thomas was working out at a sports performance center in New York. There, she did sprint mechanics and what she thought was Olympic weightlifting.

“This guy would always come in the gym and he was like this big dude … and I was just like, ‘What’s his deal?’” Thomas recounts. “And one day he comes in and … his hands are bandaged up and he’s doing pull-ups. And I’m like, ‘What the hell is he doing?’”

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Lindsey Smith is a CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff member, P.E.-department chair and athletic director at the Columbus School for Girls in Ohio, a wife, mom to a 4-year-old, and a CrossFit Games competitor.

“I honesty just wake up every day and I’m like, ‘OK, here we go: let’s see what we got,’” she says of her busy schedule. “One day, one minute, one hour at a time.”

Smith adds that she wouldn’t have it… Continue Reading

J.P. Bolwahnn is untraditional: in his mid-30s, he’s a business-administration student at the University of San Diego, where he also plays football.

“There’s no other 35-year-old playing running back in college football right now,” he says with a laugh.

Bolwahnn is also a Level 1 Seminar Staff member, a member of Mike Burgener’s team for CrossFit Olympic Lifting Trainer Courses, and a trainer at CrossFit USD.

“He’s an outstanding… Continue Reading

Christmas Abbott is the owner of CrossFit Invoke in North Carolina, a Level 1 Seminar Staff member and a NASCAR pit-crew member in training.

“My family’s always taught me to listen to my heart and listen to my intuition,” says Abbott, who grew up in Lynchburg, Va. “I really have lived a very unusual life.”

During college, she spent a summer in Iraq upon her mother’s suggestion.

“I was never shying away from… Continue Reading

CrossFit is growing quickly in South America, and there are a total of 14 boxes in Ecuador according to the Affiliate Finder Map. Most of the affiliates are Guayaquil, the country’s largest city.

“CrossFit in Latin American, especially in my country, is a huge movement. It’s something like a counter-culture,” explains Carlos Andrade, a Level 1 Seminar Staff member.

Andrade, a nutritionist, owns CrossFit Guayaquil.

“We have boxes with hundreds… Continue Reading

Katie Hogan has been lifting since she was 13.

“I understand the stigma against girls getting bulky and strong, and I’ve had that feeling myself: ‘I don’t want to get too big,’” says the Level 1 Seminar Staff member. “But I love the feeling of being able to go up and rip a bar off the floor and have guys, girls, whoever look around like, ‘Oh my God, did she seriously just do that—with a side pony?”

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For two years, Aussie Doug Armstrong has been a CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff member. It’s a gig he describes as being “an absolute privilege” and “beyond an honor.”

Armstrong owns CrossFit Rocks in Brisbane, Australia.

Being a good trainer, he says, requires someone who is not absorbed by his or her own goals or achievements and who is willing to share experiences.

“Really, being a good trainer is about healing people,” Armstrong explains… Continue Reading

Abi Grove is member of the CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff, and she’s also a powerlifter who trains at Louie Simmons’ Westside Barbell in Columbus, Ohio.

Westside is a rugged, no-nonsense gym where elite powerlifters train to break world records, and Grove was intimidated when she left the comfort of five years at Lynnwood CrossFit/Local’s Gym in Washington state. She says she quickly found a lot of common ground between Westside… Continue Reading